Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a printing apparatus, a control method therefor, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
A printing apparatus having an image memory and a printing unit for printing on a sheet of paper has been known. In a case of printing a plurality of images with each image on a plurality of sheets, such a printing apparatus can print each image on a multiple number of sheets in a print job by reading the images only once.
Such a printing apparatus can speedily output a large number of prints by one time execution of a print job. On the other hand, if a user wants to change the number of prints for the print job currently printing, the user needs to cancel the printing, reselect the same print job, set the print settings again, and re-execute the printing. This results in an undue burden on the user.
To address this issue, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 2008-211434 and 2004-114453 disclose means for changing the number of prints or a sheet type during printing or reading an image, while interrupting the execution of a print job. These techniques enable a user to change print settings for a print job currently printing. Their objectives are to make changes in the print settings easier and to shorten the time required for printing by removing the need to re-read and re-execute the same print job.
Office environments recent years have seen an increase in a plurality of users sharing one printing apparatus, where each user's information processing apparatus transmits a print job to the printing apparatus for printing. In such a case, a plurality of print jobs executed by a plurality of users is transmitted to one printing apparatus, and the print jobs are printed one after another. As a result, print jobs other than the print job currently printing have to wait temporarily in a standby queue or the like.
When a user, who transmitted the print job currently printing, changes the number of prints of the print job, the print start time for each subsequent print job in the standby queue is affected. In particular, an increase in the number of prints for the print job currently printing will result in a delay in printing the subsequent print jobs. In such a case, printouts may not be ready at the time expected by the user(s) who transmitted the subsequent print jobs.